from his old tyrant and become a stable-boy at Inch or at Castle
Talbot. Perhaps in time he might come to be stud-groom, though that
was a dizzy height towards which as yet his imagination hardly carried
him.

"Mr. Terence has drink taken," said Patsy, in his own mind. "He's not
steady in the saddle. An', glory be to goodness, it's Spitfire he's
ridin'." Patsy was at home in many stables where the grooms and
stable-helpers condescended to accept his willing aid in running
messages or the like. "What would the Misthress or Miss Mary say if
they was to see him now? Look well to him, Sir Shawn, look well to
him, or it's killin' himself he'll be!"

This apostrophe was unspoken. Mr. Terence Comerford had brought
Spitfire under control and she walked more soberly. The talk had
ceased for moment. It broke out again. As the riders went on their
way Sir Shawn's voice sounded as though he was pleading hard with his
friend. They had always been the most attached and devoted friends
from boyhood.

Terence Comerford's laugh came back borne upon a little wind.

"It'll be," said Patsy in his thoughts, "that Sir Shawn'll be biddin'
Mr. Terence to have sinse. A quare thing it is, and he all but
promised to Miss Mary that he'd be down at Dowd's every night since she
and the Misthress went to Dublin, talking to poor Bridyeen. 'Tis
sorrow the crathur'll have, no less, if she goes listenin' to Mr.
Terence. 'Tis a wonder Sir Shawn wouldn't be givin' him better advice.
Unless it was to be--there's some do be sayin' he's fond of Miss Mary
too."

All gossip of his elders, told round the turf-fire at night when Patsy
was supposed to be fast asleep in the settle bed, instead of "cockin'
his ears" for grown people's talk.

He peered out with wide eyes in the direction the riders had taken.
His small bullet head and narrow shoulders threw a shadow on the
moonlit road.

"Sir Shawn 'ud have a right to be seein' Mr. Terence home to Inch
itself," he thought. "It isn't alone ould Hercules an' the river
tumblin' over the weir an' the terrible dark road, but there's ould
Halloran's ghost on the long avenue to Inch, and there's the ghost of
the minister's wife by the churchyard. And Spitfire, that would take
fright at a pinkeen much less a ghost, under him, and Mr. Terence be
the way of him none too steady."

Mr. Terence's laughter came back on the wind, and was caught up and
repeated by something that lurked in the Wood of the E